Forget the Kleenex and pack the industrial-strength hanky for the wildly popular teen-weeper “The Fault In Our Stars.” There weren’t too many dry eyes in the audience I saw it with. It wasn’t pretty, either. This was noisy, ugly crying with mascara-streaked eyes, dripping-wet faces and snotty noses. This was the type of emotional response from an audience so invested in the characters and story that they left it all on the cinema floor.

Me? I must be soulless, though “Simon Birch” gets me all day long. Not an ounce of mist in TFIOS. Perhaps it’s because I read John Green’s best-seller and knew what was coming. I teared up once during the book, but it was a poignant mother-daughter scene that was my gut punch, not that other thing. And, you know what I’m talking about because you’ve read the book and you’ll see the movie, probably two or three times, and you’ll probably love it. I didn’t. The film is a two-hour tearjerker that’s sluggish and predictable about the impossibly grim subject of teen cancer. In adapting John Green’s blockbuster, director Josh Boone and screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, are extremely faithful to the source. The story details the romance of Hazel (Shailene Woodley) and Augustus “Gus” (Ansel Elgort). On the page, their star-crossed story is by turns, funny, joyous, frustrating and sad. Something, maybe intimacy or Green’s superb style, is lost in transition to the screen. And actually hearing the dialogue out loud is cringe-inducing: “It would be a privilege to get my heart broken by you.”

Gus and Hazel meet cute at a support group for ill teens. Her cancer is temporarily halted by a new wonder drug. He’s in remission after cancer took his lower right leg. Gus is immediately smitten with Hazel, or “Hazel Grace” as he calls her. She’s witty and smart – a no B.S. girl who diffuses heavy situations with dark humor. Gus, a former high school basketball star, is loquacious, gorgeous and charming. In fact, they’re so good-looking the only visible sign something is wrong is the rolling oxygen tank Hazel is hooked up to fortify her damaged lungs. In between talk of “cancer perks” and PET scans, the teens learn about love, sex and what it means to live an extraordinary life. Then there’s this twist – which isn’t much of a twist – that results in a major tonal shift from breezy teen romance to maudlin mess. We’re not quite in Nicholas Sparks territory, but we’re close.

Thankfully, Woodley grounds the film. She and Elgort (who also co-starred with her in “Divergent”) are a charming screen couple, but lack the combustible chemistry (think Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw in “Love Story”) to pull off such a mawkish narrative. She gives a smart, serious and heartfelt performance that makes up for Elgort’s one-note (read: stiff) turn. Like her performance in “The Spectacular Now,” Woodley is authentic, inducing tears when she tells Gus she can’t date him because she’s a “grenade” who will leave too much destruction in her wake. That’s not even her most stirring moment. Laura Dern doesn’t have much to do as Hazel’s devoted mother, but she shows the youngsters how the pros do it in one agonizing flashback in which Hazel almost dies, and then another that’s heartbreaking and hopeful. The film could have used more of the mother-daughter dynamic stirred by two naturals in Dern and Woodley.

Page 2 of 2 - When the action shifts to Amsterdam, Williem Defoe shows up as the drunk reclusive author of Gus and Hazel’s favorite book, “An Imperial Affliction.” Defoe’s mere presence as Peter Van Houten gives the movie a desperately needed shot in the arm. Nat Wolff (“Palo Alto”) as Isaac, Gus’s blind best friend, also energizes the story.

In case you’re wondering if you should feel sad or worried or hopeful or happy, the overblown music by Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott will let you know. But that won’t matter to the built-in audience of teen girls and their “The Vow” loving mothers.

Opportunity is knocking if you’re a teen boy. This is your chance to be her shoulder to cry on. Okay? Okay.

Dana Barbuto may be reached at dbarbuto@ledger.com or follow her on Twitter @dbarbuto_Ledger.